ShopLeah's BACK! with a Promo!

You all know I have an etsy site, right?? ShopLeah. I was straight rockin it last fall/winter. I was doing craft fairs, selling really well on etsy, then I got burned out. I put up pictures of items I *could* make, as in had made in the past, had the materials, but when the orders came in I got totally selfish with my time and got burned out fast. Anyhow I've had a nice break and guess what? This weekend I took out the organza, rounded up my Ulta bag of headbands, and got to work again! I need to restock ShopLeah because it's looking a little scarce. Lesson learned, don't post pictures of items unless they are ready to ship :)

Below are what I made this weekend. I try to stick w/ the trends that I want to buy from places like Anthro or J. Crew etc. So here's a preview of a few of the headbands and one clip I'll be posting on ShopLeah w/ in the next week or so! Exciting! In the event you want any of these, let me know! At checkout enter the code "Lovely Life of Leah" and I'll give you 29% off by way of paypal refund (excluding shipping). Why 29? Because I'm 29 for the next week lol. So this offer is good until 5/4/10 midnight! And if you want anything below just convo me and I'll set it up!

*All flowers shown are hand made, hand sewn. No glue used. Hand-sewn to headbands, clips, etc. High attention to detail, very secure and will last forever.

PS Have you been over to my other blog the Lovely Life of Kitty yet? I love it! so much fun! This one is more serious, but that one just cracks me up :) I am going to the beach next week, so you know I'll have some new pics of Kitty in new fun places!

Easiest dinner ever... and it was actually good!

So I have heard of foil pocket cooking but never tried it until my friend Lauren told me about it. I figured I'd give it a shot! (Obviously I'm WAYY over the raw thing). We went to the farmer's market this past weekend and I got a bunch of good fresh veggies for cheap. And it's all local. I need to shop there more often. Anyway... I think you can reuse and/or recycle the tin foil, right? I threw mine in the recycling (after Cole licked the aluminum foil. yes the dog and no he didn't cut his tongue). 

OK ANYWAY... so I'm sure there is a whole website full of recipes, but just do your own thing and it'll be fine. I cooked mine in the oven at 375 for a total of 1 hr. But you can cook them on the grill if you would like. For mine I just cut up red potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, onions, then threw in some random spices and olive oil and sea salt.

I made a veggie one for me and a chicken one for Jason that left out the sweet potatoes. Gav had some of each (and fed Cole his corn) . Here are my step by step photos:

After seeing Food, Inc. chicken breasts especially skeeve me out. I totally couldn't eat these even if I wanted to.

Here's mine. Very lovely lol.

Baking on my Pampered Chef pizza stone (seemed like a good idea. Sorry about the dirty oven! I only remember it's dirty when I'm cooking and it might be slightly dangerous to clean it then lol!!!)

So this was after 30 minutes... I didn't really think it was done so I threw it all back in another 30 min and it was perfect (really hard to mess this up, which is good for me!)

Way better! Husband gave it 10/10 on vegetables and he said the chicken was tough. I just have the frozen chicken from a bag defrosted in the microwave, so that was probably it. But he gave chicken 8/10 so that's not too awful.

Yeah... so about the raw food thing...

Ok I don't want to sound like a quitter, but I think I ate raw exactly 8 hrs hahaha. It's not that it is that hard to do, but when there is good, delicious, cooked, warm food that is free... yeah... raw goes out the window :(  So I'm trying to get back on it this week. It's actually easy at work, it's just at home that I have a tough time. Help me be strong... it's only until Thursday! Well and then next week too b/c  after that it's ... my birthday!!!

And yeah I realized I'm going to be slammed at work and getting ready to go on vacay for my bday. Plus I sort of forgot to order my custom cupcake toppers. I know, all that planning and what did it get me? Oh well! That just means even more exciting things will be happening!

(that's a raw birthday below hahah depressing!)

Happy Earth Day!

At work we did a cool thing today and took a nature walk and took photos in a park close by to put up in our office! I work with some amazing photographers! Here are a few I took (the ones at the end) and some good ones my tallented co-workers took :) 

Yeah check me out all naturie in my earth day inspired top and belt (ignore my blue kicks haha)

ok here are mine! yay!

A week of going raw...

Ok so it is no coincidence that it is 1 week until the final weigh-in of the biggest loser competition at my work. I have thought about going raw for a week for a while now. I think this is just the motivation I need. I'll start after my lunch today of course (I brought in a salad, but some really good lentil/spinach stew thing my mom and I made this weekend). So how will I do with the 100% raw? I'm not sure... I do fruit till noon anyway, so 1/3 my day's accounted for. I try to eat salads before lunch/dinner so that's another maybe 1/8 th lol. so I am not good at math or fractions, but I have to come up w/ some fun raw veggies/nut dishes. There are infinity cool looking raw foods cookbooks out there. Granted, most have ingredients I don't want to get... like ok I don't know but something! LOL! Raw just seems cool, look at Ani (below. Ok I don't know her just saw the name of the book) she's super cute and seems happy about going raw. Yeah!

Ok so I'm not sure how this will go but I'll be updating as much as I can! PS - I did the whole 'back story' to LLoK. I guess you all don't know the method to my madness, but it's a cute story! Check it out and follow me por favor :)

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LLoK

Lovely Life of Kitty is my new blog! Check it out and become a follower!

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Lovely Life of Kitty

New Blog! So I have created a new new blog. I just started it so I don't have a lot of pictures yet, but I will soon!!! Please follow :) I promise... it is going to be really exciting.

Lovely Life of Kitty

I finally made a button!

So if you would like... here is my tiny, baby button!


(Grab the link on the right --->)





PS I am working on a NEW blog project.... more info to come soon!
(*Hint... there is a button on the right for it down the page... see if you can find it lol!)

Sick Boy and My bday flower Cupcakes!!!

So my poor baby Gav is sick. He has a stomach virus (apparently one's going around) and so I had to come get him from school today and he has to be out tomorrow. I know it's part of being a mom, but Gav's ALWAYS well so it's just different for him to be sick. Honestly, he has not missed a day of daycare for sickness since he was younger than a year. So what do I do with a sick boy? Take him to paint pottery, obviously lol! (he saw this cute bat on the bottom shelf in the very back. awesome!)

So please send some healing thoughts to this poor boy who fell asleep sitting up. Cole wasn't asleep but was pretending in the picture lol!

Anyhow so the more I think about my cupcakes I'm bringing myself for work before my birthday (ok totally switching gears here... and yes, I am bringing my own cupcakes because, well I'm an event planner and I have such specific requests that if it involves me (normally I'm 100% laid back) it needs to be 110% perfect. I know, weird. So it is very self-indugent of me I know!) Anyhow, I think I have picked out my bday cupcakes and no, I am not going to do Hello Kitty. I think it would just be too much plus there are copy-rite issues... and I really like these and they aren't HK... plus I get 24 so I could use them for other things which would be good if I don't use them all at work. They keep for 2 yrs!!


I found this amazing Etsy seller Erin, with Hello Frosting and she literally will let you (if you are a graphic designer) design your cupcake. I had a few ideas, but keep going back to this one she already made. I also like her the monogram ones... but no, the spring ones are good. I am 99.99% I will get them.

Ok so who's a graphic designer and wants to create something custom for me to have her print on cupcakes? Let me know because I am sooo close to getting these, but I would also like the self-indulgence of having my name or 30 (omg!) on them somewhere. Ok yay!

TOMS - A day without shoes day TODAY!

My sis sent me a pic of her feet at school w/ no shoes!

Thats me at work!

Good morning,

Today is TOMS a day without shoes day!

via

I am so proud of my sister Sarah for so many reasons. Today she is leading her University (Elon) in celebrating TOMS shoe's "A Day Without Shoes." They wrote an article about her efforts that you can check out HERE. So what are TOMS and what's up with this day? TOMS is a shoe company who most people (including myself) first learned about on the AT&T commercial showing the cutie Blake (TOMS founder, no his name isn't Tom) running the entire business from his phone. This is the shoe company that does "one for one" meaning for each pair of shoes you buy, they will donate one pair to a child in need. How wonderful is that!? Their shoes are actually pretty cool and come in a variety of styles. Here are me sporting mine a few weeks back at work:

So what is 'a day without shoes day?' here's an exerpt from the article my sister was featured in linked above explaining it:

"It's a day they hold every year where TOMS supporters go without shoes for the entire day to experience what the people (without shoes) feel," Elon University sophomore and student representative for TOMS Shoes Sarah Houser said. "They can gain an appreciation for the shoes we get to wear every day."

 There are so many things we all take for granted like fresh water, food, etc. By purchasing TOMS they will donate a pair of shoes to a child who needs them. There are so many diseases that kids can get (especially those in 3rd world countries) for not wearing shoes. So this is why TOMS donates shoes to children at risk for these diseases.

TOMS understands that not everyone can go without shoes all day due to work, school, etc. But please take time to go without shoes for even a few minutes today... if you want... write TOMS on your feet (so people will know what you are doing/supporting) and feel free to spread the word about TOMS and a day without shoes. Already wearing shoes? Kick them off and grab a sharpie!

Sarah, I'm stalking your dress! UPDATE

So my sister Sarah made my dad a FB page and in his profile picture she's there too wearing what only can be described as teh CUTEST dress ever! Because I have entirely too much free time on my hands I went and found her dress online (she told me where it was from which helped a lot lol). The sad news is it is from last fall so of course Forever 21 doesn't sell it anymore :( But don't you agree it's super cute and versitile! I love the big, graphic flowers and the belt, sleeves, and just everything about it! Sarah if you weren't teeny tiny like size XXS lol I'd make you let me borrow it. But in the meantime I'll just stalk the dress some more lol! I even got the specs on it: F21 Jinny Floral Knit Dress. It soo will be mine (and you all know I don't get excited over clothes that often lol!)

*Update from earlier, here is the picture from FB, super cute yes!?!?

 Hold on... it comes in cream too!?! Oh snap why am I like 6 months late on finding this?? Ok time for setting up an ebay alert... somebody must be done with theirs by now, right?

Oh wow I just saw they have it on polyvore too... so here is my outfit I wish I had:

Jinny Floral Knit Dress by leahwinstead featuring Forever21 dresses

Happy Easter!

In honor of my favorite Easter tradition (robin's egg lipstick... see this post for more info and how I incorporated it into my wedding lol!) I did an update! Happy Easter everyone!!! :)

Lotus Roots yet again... aka Tim Burton's Fav.

Ok, so technically I have no clue what Tim Burton likes to eat... but the lotus roots look like a tiny family of Nightmare Before Christmas faces, right?

Finished product. This time I made it into this stir-fry with soy sauce. (Ingredients: lotus roots, frozen peas, leeks, garlic, carrots, onion and shoyu). The lotus roots still were bitter. I think these may have been bad? I don't know. Here's when I cooked them the first time and they were worse. It makes me so bummed out when I cook and it's not super delicious. I eat everything I cook just because I hate waste.

Meanwhile...

I fed some stir fried lotus roots to Gav and he thought they were tiny waffles (I wish!). He was excited at the exactly 1 bite he took (pretty much immediately after I took the 2nd picture he hurled the remaining 'tiny waffle' across the table. oh well!).

So speaking of weird stuff... check out these noodles! They are called different things like glass noodles or vermicelli. They are made of mung beans so they are gluten free. I have had them before in Thai food. They are pretty good. I put them on top of... ok this is sad, I don't even remember what it was.... I think possibly my Jamaican dish that I made so much of? I was sick last week when I made and ate this and don't remember much lol! But I 1- lost weight last week (always a good thing) and 2- I am healthy now so I will just assume they healed me lol!